


In the Dark and Deep

by eilidh17



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 04:51:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12381276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eilidh17/pseuds/eilidh17
Summary: Daniel remembers events from a mission with SG-13, where Jack didn't have his six.Prompts were:Requirement (#1): Established relationshipRequirement (#2): Hurt/ComfortOptional Request: I particularly like fics that could have been episodes of the show (but with added J/D)Restriction (#1): No explicit sex, pleaseRestriction (#2): No partner betrayalI hope I came close XX





	In the Dark and Deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alobear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alobear/gifts).



**In the Dark and Deep**

 

_Daniel could only remember looking across at Cameron Balinsky as the man rose to his feet and slapped 1300-year-old dust off his BDU pants, the moment memorable because this was their fall-out event, where the wall Daniel had been called to inspect had come crashing down around them.  Geology aside, because even though Balinsky’s interest for this mission teetered more towards rock formations and less towards bodies and carbon dating, the presence of skeletal remains turned Daniel’s fascination with a row of unique pictographs into disappointment as they crumbled away._

_Without the help of this world’s foremost archaeological expert, who Daniel was sure only gained the title because he showed some interest in rocks and caves and strange carvings, the best they had been able to determine was the remains had been wedged further up the wall.  All it had taken was one tap of the hammer and chisel by Balinsky and the whole wall came tumbling down._

_Enough traipsing through ruins thought abandoned, on planets thought equally abandoned, had given being caught desecrating newly-realized sacred sites a rather cliché feel, and this was no different.  According to Colonel Dixon, Balinsky had secured carte blanche access to the site simply because the writing had piqued the curiosity of the native landholders, and because never had these people known someone, besides themselves, with the ability to read their old language.  It was land of no consequence, the local leader had told them, spreading his arms wide to encompass the general area of the cave, his announcement backed up with a round of vigorous head nods from his court of followers._

_It was when the wall came down and showered them with dust and bones that the generosity of their hosts swiftly ran out._

 

~oOo~

 

“I forgot to mention the pipes.”

“Pipes?”

“In my report.”

“Okay. What kind of—”

“I should have known.  I mean, I saw them.  Lining the road.  At first, I thought they were for plumbing or irrigation, but they were big.  Big enough that I wondered if maybe they were being used to shore up the sides of wells.  I don’t know.”

“And these pipes were important because?”

Jack felt Daniel shrug under his hands, and then shake his head as though whatever he was thinking was suddenly unimportant.  They had been huddled together on the deck of Jack’s cabin for hours now.  Jack wanted to talk, but Daniel was withdrawn and distant, content to simply sit there nestled between Jack’s legs with his head resting against Jack’s left thigh.   

It was cold out.  The sun had long set and the air was filling with the rich smell of tamarack that rose from the cabin’s fireplace.

“Daniel?”

“It’s nothing.  Forget I said anything.”

“No.  It’s not nothing when it clearly means something to you.”

“I just…”  Daniel turned to look up at Jack and frowned, shaking his head again before turning away.  “I guess I was too relaxed.  There was another archaeologist on the mission and I was there to do nothing more than consult.  I didn’t look beyond first glances to make even a casual observation.”

“It wasn’t your mission.”

“Not my mission, not my team, not you there watching my six.”

“Dixon did the best he could.”

“I should have paid more attention to the pipes.”

“Why?”

“They were drying in the sun, along the road from the Stargate.  Not many.  Maybe a dozen, maybe less.  It wasn’t until I saw writing on them that I realized I was wrong.”

“You didn’t mention this in your report.”

“I didn’t remember.  Until now.”

“So, this writing?”

“That’s the weird part.  I saw a couple of local men using sticks to carve the writing into the semi-dried clay, but I never gave it more than a quick glance.”

“Connect by numbers?  Instructions?  This pipe fits into that pipe, which fits into—”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I think they were names, Jack.  Like what we found on the wall.”

 

~oOo~

 

_“Looks Incan to me.”_

_“That was my thinking as well.”_

_Daniel tossed his brush down to the rest of his kit and stood back from the section of wall he had been working on.   At some point, long before he had arrived and probably before SG-13 had offered to help the locals with their minor archaeological find, the area around the wall had been dug out.  Excavated downwards because the writing they had discovered ran right down to the ground and apparently beyond.  It all made sense to Daniel as soon as he saw that the writing on the lowest part of the wall was more pictographic than the much higher hieroglyphs._

_“This earlier stuff,” he said picking up his brush again and swishing away the dust from several animal forms on the lower part of the wall, “is clearly much older.  The definition is more cave art, almost aboriginal, but there is a steady progression into a developed hieroglyphic form of writing.”_

_“Like a timeline,” Balinsky said, stepping closer and brushing away at some of the higher glyphs.  “If only this section of the wall wasn’t so fractured.”_

_“Landslide?”_

_“That was Colonel Dixon’s guess.  Wells found a quarry about a mile away that shows a clear build-up of soil and natural litter piled high above the quartz layer.  There are large fractures running through the rock face.”_

_“So… most likely this whole area was inhabited at one point and then buried by a landslide.  Explains why the city is so far away.”_

_“Yeah, well, the locals aren’t exactly the record keeping type.”_

_“Oral history?”_

_“A couple of generations worth but then nothing.  At least nothing they cared to share with us.  They don’t even know who the Goa’uld are.”_

_“That’s a little odd, don’t you think?”_

_Balinsky turned away from the wall and headed back to the opposite side of the cave, to where his backpack was stashed.   “If there was a Goa’uld here, he left a long time ago.” He reached for his canteen and slowly unscrewed the lid.  “Their English is good, which would mean they spent enough time in servitude to forget at least some aspects of their native tongue.”_

_“A few centuries of displacement can do a lot to a culture.”_

_“Oh!  That reminds me.”  Balinsky reached back into his pack and pulled out a small bag, taking from it a mess of strings covered in small knots._

_Daniel stepped closer and took the colored strings, turning them over in his hand and running a finger over the knots.  “It’s a quipu. Beautiful craftsmanship.”_

_“I thought that might pique your curiosity.  There’s a vendor selling them in the local market place.”_

_“They still use them?”_

_“Looks that way.”_

_“So much for my cultural displacement theory.”_

_“If something isn’t broken, don’t fix it?”_

_“Or, in this case, don’t replace it with something better.”_

_“I’m surprised the Goa’uld who kidnapped them didn’t try too raise their level of basic education, given the technology they would have been exposed to at the time.”_

_Daniel shrugged and handed back the quipu.  “The Goa’uld aren’t exactly known for educating their slaves.  Even the Jaffa are only taught what they need to know.”_

 

~oOo~

 

“I did read your mission report.  You know that, right?”

“I do.  But I think a lot got left out.  Or maybe I forgot to put it in.”

“It doesn’t matter right now.”  Jack leaned forward to kiss Daniel lightly on the top of his head, pulling back only when Daniel dipped his chin to his chest and cursed under his breath.  “Don’t,” Jack said softly.  “It wasn’t your fault.”

“The wall was curved.  Did I mention that?”

“You may have said something like that.  I don’t—”

“We didn’t know.  Not until Cameron stood on top of this pallet they gave him and started working around the fractures.”

“And?”

“He was being careful, but… but sometimes it doesn’t take much for whole sections of wall to fall away.  It just depends on what’s behind it, on top of it, you know…”

“I get the idea.”

Daniel leaned back over to the left and rested his head back on Jack’s leg, his voice almost muffled against the fabric.  “I guess it didn’t matter having Cirilo there.”

“Their archaeologist?”

“Sure.  If you want to call him that.  The Caral are very xenophobic.  Balinsky said most of their contact comes from visitors: they rarely use the gate at all.”

“Yeah, Dixon mentioned that.  I read SG-13’s first contact mission report from a few months ago.  Apparently, Boswell ended up in the infirmary with some projectile from a blow gun stuck in his leg.  Or something.”

“He’s lucky that’s all they hit him with.”

“So, this Cirilo guy?”

“Copied pretty much everything Cameron and I did.  At first.  I think he realized that by the time we’d managed to uncover a decent portion of the wall he was way out of his depth.  Enthusiastic at first, and then made some excuse to be someplace else.”

“But happened to come back just at the right time?”

“Yeah.” Daniel laughed.  The heat from his breath creating a hotspot on Jack’s leg.  “Right as Cameron’s chisel struck a fault and brought the wall down.”

 

~oOo~

 

_“You okay?”  Daniel picked himself up from where he’d landed, managing to avoid one large section of hieroglyphs that seemed to hang in the air for a split second before falling forward.  He looked across to Balinsky who was crouched down among the shattered remains of the wall, still holding his chisel in his hands._

_“Ah… Daniel?” he coughed out and pointed the chisel towards the floor and then up to where the wall had been.  “That wasn’t there before.”_

_The wall had been a façade, a panel of sorts that cleverly hid a curved, second red clay wall.  Daniel thought back to the pipes he had seen on his walk from the Stargate – red clay halves baking in the midday sun, some fresh, some already starting to lighten as they hardened.  Those had been smooth.  Handmade, but crafted by someone with years of experience._

_The sound of clay splitting, coming apart and tumbling to the ground, was enough to drive his attention back to the wall, and in time to see Balinsky scramble out of the way as the new outer layer shattered and pitched forward.  In timing so perfect, Daniel caught site of Cirilo running into the cave just as a heavily adorned but very decayed body spilled out of the hole and crashed to the ground._

_Archaeological curiosity and the satisfaction of finding something new and unexpected was what Daniel expected they would be greeted with, but instead he got confusion and yelling as Cirilo called out for help that came in the form of young men armed with blow guns._

_Daniel stood up quickly and raised up his hands to diffuse the situation, while Balinsky grabbed his radio and called Colonel Dixon for back-up. “Ah!  Look, we’re sorry.  We had no idea what was behind the wall.”_

_A shout of “Suway! Suway!” bounced of the cave walls, followed by the tell-tale sound of darts being blown through the air._

~oOo~

 

“Suway meaning?”

“Thieves.  In Quechua, the ancient language of Peru.” Daniel laughed lightly.  “So much for them having lost some of their native language, their culture.  They just hid it well.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over this.  You, I understand.  Fresh off a mission and then heading off to help another team when you should have been resting.”

“Here.”

“With me.”

“Preferably wrapped around you.”

“Other way ‘round tonight.”  When Daniel shifted back against Jack’s chest, Jack leaned forward and rested his chin on his head.  “But SG-13, they’d been to this world before, made friends with the locals, done some trading and got the lay of the land.”

“Xenophobic, Jack.”

“I get that they’re primitive compared to their modern-day relatives.   Dixon says you and Balinsky disturbed the tomb of some royal… person.  He tried to make a case that you had no idea what was there but apparently Balinsky assured them that you could read their writing.  So…”

“So, they assumed we knew what we’d found when in fact we had no idea.”

“Something like that.  Anyway, they didn’t dart Dixon right away like they did you two, so he had a better idea of what was going down.”

“Going down…”

“You know, what was happening—”

“I know what you mean, Jack.  I was referring to what happened next.”

“You remember?”

“Not really, at least not the trip from the cave to… wherever they took us.  But I remember waking up and not being able to think straight, not being able to move.  It was dark, but I could sense light above me.  I tried to move but couldn’t.  Too confined.  And I remember wondering why my arms hurt.  I wanted to pull them down once I realized they were above my head, but there was no room.  Not to sit down, not even to bend my knees.” 

“The put you in a hole in the ground.  You, Balinsky, Dixon.  Tied a rope to your wrists that was connected to a stake at the surface.  No way you could have put your arms down even if you tried.  Damn sadists!”

“Probably to pull us out if they—"

“We tried to get to you as quick as we could.  Dixon managed to get a message through to Wells and Bosworth before they took him down.”

“You said they didn’t drug him.  Dixon.”

“Not at first.  He managed to order the rest of his team back to the gate to get help before they shot him.  Good thing Boswell isn’t so good at following orders.”

“He didn’t?”

“Nope.  Wells came through the gate while Boswell went to ground.  It was getting dark when they carried you three to the field, but he managed to get a clear enough view of where they put Dixon and Balinsky.”

“But not me.”

“No.  Balinsky and Dixon were on the edge of the field, but they took you further away.  Not sure why.”

“Space, probably.”

Jack shrugged.  “Anyway, Boswell had his earpiece in, which was just as well as the SGC tried to contact him just your pal Cirilo and his men were walking past his hiding spot.”

“Compromised?”

“No, but it was close.  The rest is pretty much history.  SG-1 came through with Wells and 3 SG teams in tow, Boswell lead us to Balinsky and Dixon.  We found you an hour later.”

“What about the Caral?  They didn’t see you?”

“Oh, yes.  They did.  Reynolds introduced them to his F.R.E.D-mounted M2.”

“He didn’t!”

“Fire it at them?  No, but he dusted up the ground for a fair distance.  They got the message.”

“They’re not bad people, Jack.”

“No, they bury people they don’t like in very deep holes.”

“Ancient Peruvians buried their dead standing up.  Warriors, nobility, people of high standing. That’s what the pipes were for.  I should have known.”

“Daniel, you shouldn’t have even been there!”  Without argument, because Jack was pretty sure Daniel had none left in him, he rose to his feet and lifted Daniel with him.  “And, as my ass is officially frozen, the rest of this conversation, if there is anything else, can wait until tomorrow.”

“Want me to unfreeze your six?”

“You had to ask?”

“No, but I can think of several ways to thaw it out.”

The End

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Alobear, for the 2017 JD Ficathon. Apologies to Alobear for taking so long to get this posted. Real life decided to get VERY real.


End file.
